Are you having trouble finding and getting seller and listing leads in Kansas City?

Well you are not alone!

Seemingly overnight, our market has transitioned from a neutral market, 6 months of inventory, to a sellers market where we are seeing 4 months of inventory or less. Buyers are getting frustrated that the Buyer’s Market that they were hoping for is now all but gone. Homes are going under contract in the first week and are getting multiple offers, driving the final sales price over list price in many instances. While this is a good indicator that our market is strengthening, and buyer confidence is up, it poses a problem for the average agent – your listing inventory is now low to gone.

The main reason that I wanted to go over getting listings from open houses is that they are one of the best ways to get new business FAST. At Keller Williams Diamond Partners we take open houses beyond the basics and go for open house domination!

Take the 30 hour pre-exam course. This course prepares you to take the Kansas real estate license test. There are in class and online options, we have recommendations, but you can find out what is best for you. During this class it is advised that you get your fingerprints and send them off to the state for your background check.

Take the Kansas real estate license test. The test is comprised of a majority of general real estate questions and portion of state specific questions as well.

Take a 30 hour real estate practice course. This course is designed to introduce you to the way that real estate business is done and how to negotiate your way through a transaction. Like the first course there are in-class and online options.

Overcoming NO in real estate sales and in Life – changing the way we look at asking for what we want!

I had a recent conversation with a dear friend about their business and we came across a really great subject that I wanted to take a minute and go over with you. In a nutshell, we were talking about our respective services and that there were times when their bids seem high and they sometimes freeze before presenting them for fear of rejection – fear of the NO.

The word NO is such an interesting word – only 2 letters – but those two letters have the power to completely paralyze us and cause us to fall into inaction. So why is that? My daughter is about to turn three and she is fearless when it comes to the word NO, she will ask and ask for hours to get what she wants, sometimes getting 10-15 no’s until either I tire of the struggle and say yes, or she gets bored of the asking and moves on. At what point in life do we lose this never ending desire to get what we want?

So what is the main fear behind NO?

Rejection. We all want to be liked and making a call, meeting with a client or asking for something you want puts us in a vulnerable state. Asking someone to work with us or choose us puts us in a position that if they say no, it can oftentimes feel like they are rejecting us personally, even though more than 95% of the time it has nothing to do with you personally. They are usually just not ready for your service, or you have not demonstrated enough value for them to make any type of switch.

Don’t be tied to the result! – A pro baseball player in the hall of fame strikes out 70% of the time during their entire career! What kind of career do you think they would have if they got discouraged after 2 or 3 strike outs?

Make collecting No’s a game. – If it’s about numbers, then if your goal is to get to 30 No’s a day, then imagine how many Yes’s would be sprinkled in there. Also, notice the mind shift, if you are making calls to get No’s then what happens when you hear one? That’s right, success! The Yes’s are in there and they will come out.

Never forget that if you never ask then the answer is always NO.

So get over your fear of NO! It’s little, it’s insignificant and most importantly it’s just two little letters that are standing in the way of your true potential and life changing opportunity.

Like this:

Have you ever hear the term, “It’s all in the timing?” Timing plays a big role in those who succeed and those who wait.

Let me introduce you to the three main types of people in this world:

Those who “Do”. These are the first to act, they take calculated risks when presented with all the facts, but also reap the majority of the rewards. They seem like magical fortune tellers. If you ask them how they do it their answers are simple, “All the indicators pointed in a particular direction and history indicated that the next ‘big’ thing was about to happen.”

Those who “Watch and Wonder”. These individuals are on the sidelines watching those who “Do”. They often have the same information presented to them, but due to either fear or lack of understanding they fail to take action. So they stand on the sideline wondering what happened and how those who “Do” knew it would be a slam dunk.

Those who have no clue. These individuals are completely out of the loop and are not even aware that there was an opportunity. They are content in their current situation and have no desire to change their status. They are often heard saying things like “Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees” or “Slow and Steady” or “Get a good job and work hard”

If you are in category number 2, I am about to share with you some very important information in regards to real estate and the housing market in Kansas City, Lawrence and the state of Kansas as a whole.

The center for real estate at the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University just released it’s 2013 Kansas Housing Market Forecast and the results should excite you.

For the Kansas City Market:

Home sales are expected to rise over 5.4% over last years total volume of 26,960 to almost 29,000 units sold. Prices will continue to see a nominal increase of 1.5% appreciation and lending rates are expected to remain stable for the next 12 months.

For the Lawrence Market:

Existing home sales are expected to rise over 15.8% to 1,390 units which is near 2007 levels and prices are expected to climb 2.1%. One of the biggest indicators are that NEW homes permits are expected to rise 3.1%.

Real Estate is a SALES job and to grow your business you need to find and create leads

Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance is a conditioned trait!

On the surface this all sounds fine and good, until you have to make your first few sales calls. You think to yourself, “I’m going to be amazing at this, I’m on the phone all day anyway. What’s so hard about making sales calls to potential clients?” Then they get their list ready, which is your cell phone database to begin with…and then….it starts.
The sweats, the doubt, the fear and that phone and that list become every sales agent’s worst nightmare. You just got a case of sales call reluctance – the good news is that you can overcome it.

So what is Sales Call Reluctance in real estate?

In its simplest form, sales cold call reluctance is a fear of rejection. We all have it; we all want to be liked. So when we call people to talk about business or to ask for a referral there are several limiting beliefs that all sales people get:

Top 5 tips to overcome sales call reluctance in real estate.

Have a purpose before your call – know why you are calling every time before you dial.

Have a script – scripts are a game plan, in football the offense calls a play before every snap of the ball – it’s their script and then they react to what the defense provides them, but they always start out with a script – get over it and start using them.

Come From Contribution! People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. They who give the most value and care the most get the sale.

Realize that sales calls are a numbers game – and that hall of fame baseball players strike out 7 out of 10 times at bat and still make millions a year. Same thing – you can’t help every call, but every call gets you closer to a yes.

Time On Task Over Time – You will get better and more confident over time. Accept the fact that you are nervous. So what! The more calls you make the better you will get and your conversions will get and your account will grow.

The Confession

So this week at my accountability weigh in that I share with my Facebook friends in order to keep me on track, I came across an opportunity to elaborate on a little concept that we talk about a lot at Keller Williams Diamond Partners. Before I get to it let me share with you, I wanted to take a second and apologize to everyone that I fell out of integrity and that this week I did not loseweight, in fact I gained half a pound back.

So, I’m standing there, a bit dejected and starting to get really embarrassed and thinking “great, now what am I going to post on Facebook?!” So, with my pride deflated, I wanted to turn this into an opportunity for learning and share some concepts that we talk about:

When we are winning, it is at that time that we have to focus on our fundamental tasks and actually work even harder. (Just ask K-State what happened right after they received their #1 ranking this year – Baylor? Really?!?!) anyway…

We get into coaching and accountabilitynot because it’s fun, or easy, but because, by nature, we cannot hold ourselves accountable – or at least not to our true potential. If you are not in coaching or mentoring at some level, then you are leaving growth opportunities on the table – period.

The Hard Lesson

#1 can never take a week off

Point number two is what I wanted to elaborate a little bit on. If you noticed last week, I was on week 3, had three weeks of nice losses, and even mentioned that I was able to start doing some points in my head. Well, just like in our businesses, when things are going good, we are receiving referrals and you have had several closings this month and have a couple in the pipeline – what is the first things that falls off your schedule? YUP – Lead Generation! Then 30 days go by, and you are through celebrating your recent past success and look ahead and now there are no closings, or maybe just one small deal. So point number two happens to be the answer to so many agent’s question “When does the income roller coaster stop in this business?” Simple – consistent lead generation regardless of production.

For me this week, my points tracking completely fell off my radar and I got lazy. My scale doesn’t care what I did last week, it just posts results. We have a saying in the office “You can have reasons or results, but you can’t have both.” Well this week, I had to face the reality that I just did not do what I was supposed to and my results reflected that 100% – I only have myself to look at.

Getting back to Integrity

So, let me refer back to a BOLD theory called PTFAR – (Pronounced Pointfar) which stands for Programing leads to Thoughts which affects our Feelings which lead us to taking Actions and actions produce Results which go back to changing our Programming.

This week’s Scale in reference to PTFAR:

Programing – this week’s results triggered an embarrassed and pissed off reaction in me.

Thoughts – I had to go back to what I did and didn’t do, and reevaluate and put a plan together to get back into integrity.

Feelings – I am embarrassed to share with everyone that did not take steps towards my goals this week, this feeling SUCKS!